The present invention is a lawn mower/tractor deck-mountable trimmer allowing the user to edge an area extending from the edge of the deck. This allows the user to, while using the mower, to edge trim areas formerly requiring the user to dismount and utilize a hand-held trimmer in the area where the mower could not reach. These areas include, for example (but not limited to) under the edge of a fence, around trees, driveway edges, etc. The dual task inefficiently required additional time, effort, and separate equipment, creating a real need in the area for a device that could combine both tasks efficiently in a low cost manner.
Lawn mowers and trimmers are universally known in the art in their separate configurations. Further, the idea of a deck-mounted trimmer on a mower is known in the art, including, but not limited to U.S. Pat. No. 2,663,137 to Asbury, U.S. Pat. No. 3,192,693 to Bergeson, U.S. Pat. No. 3,812,917 to Strate, U.S. Pat. No. 3,871,160 to Hooper, U.S. Pat. No. 3,407,579 to Decker, U.S. Pat. No. 4,453,372 to Remer, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,170,099 and 4,642,976 to Owens. However, the existence of such a device in other than the patent literature is far less ubiquitous. These devices, currently known to skilled artisans through patent literature, are all lacking in actual functional utility, ease of use, or are cost-prohibitive for manufacture or in application. More troublesome is that most of these devices are intended to be incorporated in the manufacture of new mowers. Few are available to the average consumer through either actual availability of devices incorporating them or because they are only incorporated in very heavy duty, cost-prohibitive devices.
Therefore, the need for a deck-mounted trimmer that works well, incorporates real safety features, is easy to use, manufacture, and apply to existing mowers is clear. The apparatus described herein can be applied as an add-on feature to an existing mower deck or, in the future, incorporated in the retail mower itself. The ease of application of the device to a mower deck for an existing device can, however, be easily appreciated.
Trimmer devices applied to mowers, in general, such as U.S. Pat. No. 6,032,443 to Aldrich, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,966,168 to Kerr typically merely provide methods of applying existing handheld trimmer devices to mower decks after manufacture. Moving up the line of improvement, U.S. Pat. No. 6,381,936 to Lin removes the long handle and inserts the trimmer under the deck of the mower. Finally, more sophisticated devices such as the trimmer disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,094,896 to Lane, U.S. Pat. No. 7,334,387 to Miller, and U.S. Pat. No. 7,165,383 to Luton actually fixedly apply a trimmer to the deck of the mower, extending the device outside of the mower's path, but providing no flexibility on the depth of the cutting path of the trimmer, with the exception of U.S. Pat. No. 6,397,573 to Roundy et al. which discloses two fixed length arms pivoting around a fixed axis utilizing a control bar and spring to extend the outer arm from the axis, having complete rigidity around the connection to the deck, denying access to the underside of the trimmer without removing the device or flipping the entire mower onto its side. The state of the current art in the area fails to provide a deck-mountable apparatus that is height adjustable to differing decks, easily adjustable in extension length of the trimmer, and easily liftable for access to the underside of the trimmer head for routine maintenance and storage.